Llaneros Songs of Casanare

‘Good evening compadre. We've been waiting for you..!’ That's the welcome given by the musicians at the start of the lively ‘Bamba’, the very last track, paradoxically enough, of this thrilling disc of music from the Llano region (which surrounds the Orinoco river running through both Colombia and Venezuela). ‘Bamba’, a traditional golpe rhythm, sees a witty trading of octosyllabic décima verses between inspired male and female singers. It's an old tradition also found alive and well in other parts of the Americas (Cuba, Chile, Brazil) originating initially in medieval Spain and Portugal. The singers’ humour has everyone heckling, while the small cuatro guitar plays instrumental interludes. Can there be anything more exciting than agile fingers strumming fast and plucking polyrhythms on the little four-string Venezuelan guitar (albeit rivalled here by the harps, guitars and bandolas heard alongside it)?

The vibrancy of this recording takes you headlong into a world of small farming families whose culture revolves round cattle and who make music in their spare time. From striking cattle-calls to zingy strummed joropo and fandango dances, via songs half-yodeled by sculptured voices in high pitches to carry on the open-air, this collection, recorded in Casanare Colombia between 1995 and 2003, is a definitive one.